Monday, November 17, 2008

Two Quick & Dirty Tables

Adventurers share a common trait with rats, mice, and ants: they get into everything. This tendency often forces the referee to quickly determine what the party discovers when rooting through the set dressings of the dungeon in search of loot. Most times, this is not a problem for a referee on his or her toes. They can quickly rattle off a few items with the caveat that they are “worthless/ruined/of no practical use”. But sometimes inspiration fails the referee, and the answer the players receive is “you find nothing.”

Having run into this situation myself over the years, I sometimes like to prepare a few quick & dirty tables to randomly roll on for the next time the adventurers are poking around off the beaten treasure trail. Below are two of those tables, one for when the party starts searching through kitchen cupboards or pantries, the other for crates in a warehouse or storeroom associated with smugglers and thieves. The purpose of posting these is two-fold. On one hand, I’m hoping that these might be of use to another harried referee in need of quick answers. On the other hand, I’m still locked in vicious hand-to-hand combat with using tables in Blogger. I’ve gotten a bit better at it, thanks to some helpful suggestions from you folks, but I’m not 100% satisfied. Considering I’d like to use tables with a few projects I have planned for the future, I figured I better get in some more practice with them. Please excuse the mess in the event that I’m still encountering difficulty with them.

Random Pantry/Kitchen Table

D20 Roll

Item Found

1

Horseradish

2

Flour

3

Orange Cookies

4

Turkey Jerky

5

Jars of Tea

6

Olive Oil

7

Lemon Peel

8

Pickled Herring

9

Cinnamon

10

Hummus and Pita Bread

11

Mint Leaves

12

Hardtack

13

Mouse Droppings

14

Hard Candies

15

Dried Peas

16

Pistachio Nuts

17

Coffee Beans

18

Jar of Jelly

19

Salt

20

Sugar

The following table was originally created for an adventure involving a smuggling cartel, but it would work for any warehouse with connections to the thieves guild or gangs.

One of the few times I got to be a DM, I had a fighter and a thief scouring a small port city that I had drawn up. Somehow they ended up searching the trading hall one night. If they had found one more package of dried fish, I think they might have thrown me out the fifth-floor window. :-)

Who's to Blame

Despite having never been a professional adventurer, Michael Curtis has nonetheless deciphered cryptic writings, handled ancient maps and texts, ridden both a camel and an elephant, fallen off a mountain, participated in a mystical rite, and discovered the resting places of lost treasures. He can be contacted at poleandrope @ gmaildotcom